Axes, mobile combat, late 13th century fight scene

[Sitting_Bill]

This is taken from Njal's saga, written in the late 13th century, but probably about events that occured at the end of the 10th century/start of the 11th, in Iceland. The translation is by Robert Cook.

2 gangs: Njalssons & friends* (Skarphedin, Kari and Grim mentioned by name here)
Thrain & Lambi & co, (the enemies of the Njalssons)

The Njalssons & friends go out looking to fight Thrain, since Thrain caused them to get attacked & imprisoned in Norway for a brief time. Eventually the two parties spot each other, and Thrain takes a stand on the other side of a partly-frozen river:

They* headed down along the river and saw where a frozen arch spanned it downstream, and they decided to cross over there.
Thrain and his men made their stand on the ice on the upriver side of the arch.
Thrain said "What can these men want? There are five of them, and eight of us."
Lambi Sigurdarson said, "My guess is that they would risk it even if one more were waiting for them."
Thrain took off his cloak and his helmet.
It happened to Skarphedin, while they were running down along the river, that his shoe-string snapped, and he fell behind.
"Why are you holding back, Skarphedin?" said Grim.
"I'm tying my shoe," said Skarphedin.
"Lets go on ahead," said Kari; "I doubt that he'll be any slower than we are."
They moved down towards the frozen arch at great speed. Skarphedin jumped up as soon as he tied his shoe and had his axe raised. He ran to the river, but it was so deep that for a long stretch it was unfordable. A broad slab of ice, smooth as glass, had formed on the other side of the river, and Thrain and his men were standing in the middle of it. Skarphedin took off into the air and leaped across the river from one ice ledge to the other and made a steady landing and shot on in a glide. The ice slab was very smooth, and Skarphedin went along as fast as a bird in flight.
Thrain was about to put on his helmet, but Skarphedin came at him first and swung his axe at him and hit him on his head and split it down to the jaw, so that the molars fell out on the ice. This happened in such rapid sequence that no one could land a blow on Skarphedin; he went gliding away at a furious speed. Tjorvi threw a shield in his way, but he hopped over it and kept his balance and glided to the end of the ice slab. Then Kari and the others came up to him.
"A manly attack, that!" said Kari.

(fight continues, banter and arm-chopping-off ensues...)

I thought some of you might like this. Its one of the best action sequences I've ever read, and it involves battleaxes, mobile combat, and a nice 5v8 fight . Skarphedin in particular reminds me of what I have read about certain H&H players on these forums.

[MagicManICT]

Gotta love the 'classics'!

Good find. Is the full text available on the net or was this from elsewhere? (Yeah, I'm too lazy to search at the moment.)

[Mitudev]

Well, the combat would be legitimate compared to that the silly stunt fighting of TV and movies or the ridiculousness of most modern written melee.

The Volsung saga and the Poetic Edda are nice reads as well.

[kLauE]

fuckin interesting.

[Sitting_Bill]

There is a full text here -

http://www.fullbooks.com/Njal-s-Saga.html

... but I don't like the translation as much as I like the one I posted, which is from my nice penguin paperback .

I liked the Volsung Saga and the Poetic Edda as well, but the great thing about Njal's saga is that it is almost completely realistic, since it is a "family saga". It also has a lot of complex themes, extended legal proceedings (!) and major historical happenings such as the introduction of Christianity to Iceland.

I also really like Egil's saga, which is kindof in between Njal's and the mythical sagas in terms of realism. Egil is kindof a dark hero, and a werewolf/werebear type person (although this is never made explicit), who at one point bites out someones throat in a duel iirc... I have lost my copy though, so I can't quote . Egil reminds me of what I have read about Klaue, whereas Skarphedin reminds me more of Vigilance . I don't know who Nao corresponds to yet...